Country diary

Bursting in from an evening in town, we turn the light on and there, giving us an eight-eyed stare, is a young blood all set for a night out on the carpets. At four inches across from foot to hairy foot, this is one of the Tegenaria male house spiders that roam indoors and out during late summer and early autumn in search of a mate. This tiny giant, with its pinched abdomen, has impossibly long arched legs and horny tips on its feeler-like palps that resemble the shiny ends of brown shoelaces. Our guess is that it is a cardinal spider, an uncommon species where we live. We decide that science comes before spider sex and lure the beast into a jam jar for the night, ready for an appointment with our local spider expert.

Ordinarily, the name cardinal denotes the colour red, yet not so much as a blush of rouge has touched the grey-brown body of this animal. It appears this creature owes its name to Cardinal Wolsey. It was said that Henry VIII's chancellor had a fear of the spiders which raced along the tapestries and floors of Hampton Court. The cardinal's contemporaries believed house spiders possessed medicinal properties. Eminent Elizabethan physician Dr Muffet declared that house spiders were effective in warding off gout. The doctor's name lives on in the nursery rhyme inspired by Patience, his supposedly arachnophobic daughter.

In the morning, the frustrated lothario's identity is confirmed. Henry VIII held the power of life and death over his cardinal: we would wish his namesake no harm. Returning home at dusk, we leave the jar in the corner to let our housemate resume his amorous adventures.